One of my favorite photos in my collection is from the 1936 film “General Spanky”.

In 1936, Hal Roach released the film “General Spanky”, an Our Gang film which stars George “Spanky” McFarland, Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas and Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer and many others.

The film was released on December 11, 1936 by MGM and was an experiment to see if Roach could take the Our Gang concept from short features to feature film. Unfortunately, the film didn’t do well in the box office and not long after, Roach ended up selling Our Gang to MGM.

Roach ended up buying back the rights to the back catalog from MGM in 1949 but didn’t purchase “General Spanky” and is now owned by Turner Entertainment. Unfortunately, there has not been an official DVD or Blu-ray release of this title as of yet.

I love Laurel & Hardy and I have a good number of their 8×11’s in my Classic Hollywood photo collection. I have no idea when this photo was taken or if it was used as a still for another film or it was just guys taking a photo together. But if anyone knows where this photo is from and what date, please let me know.

A still photo I have in my 8×11 photo collection is of Greta Garbo and John Barrymore for the 1932 film “Grand Hotel”. A wonderful photo of the characters Grusinskaya and The Baron Felix von Gaigern and another favorite still of mine.

A photo I have in my 8×11 photo collection is of Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda from the Irving Cummings film “Down Argentine Way” (1940). Originally, the film was supposed to star Alice Faye but she was sick and Betty Grable ended up taking up her role. The film ended up receiving three Academy Award nominations. The photo is absolutely beautiful.

An 8×11 photo that I have in my classic hollywood collection is of actress Greta Garbo and actor Ramon Novarro from the 1931 film “Mata Hari”.

Greta plays the exotic dancer Mata Hari, although not a factual account of the real life dancer falsely accused of being a double agent and was executed. Novarro as Lt. Alexis Rosanoff and any still photos or promo photos from “Mata Hari” in my opinion, are worth owning.

There has been quite a bit of buzz of a new Flash Gordon film coming in the near future and for most of us, many of us were introduced to “Flash Gordon” via the 1980 film starring Sam Jones (for others were the animated incarnations).

But before the ’80s film, there was the 1936 television series starring Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers (and before that was the comic book strip by Alex Raymond). The following photo is among the few “Flash Gordon” 8×11 prints that I have and in this photo is Flash (Crabbe), Dale (Rogers) and King Vultan (Jack “Tiny” Lipson).

For many years, I have been wondering what photo I have my collection is of. Part of me was saying it was Joan Crawford but then I would try to convince myself it wasn’t But recently I had the photo confirmed that it was Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson from the 1932 film “Rain”. (Thanks Guy and Frederica)